Ṣadr al-Dīn, Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī (Arabic:صَدرُالدّین، مُحَمَّد بن إبراهیم الشیرازي) (b. 979/1571-1572 - d. 1050/1640) is a well-known Shiite philosopher, mystic, and exegete of the Quran. He is also known as Mullā Ṣadrā (Arabic:ملا صدرا) and Ṣadr al-Muti'allihīn (Arabic:صدرالمتألهین). He was a student of Mir Damad and Baha' al-Din al-'Amili. His best-known student was al-Fayd al-Kashani. Mulla Sadra was the founder of the influential philosophical school known as the Transcendent Wisdom or philosophy—the third main philosophical school in Islam. He elaborated his philosophical system in the book, al-Hikma al-muta'aliya fi l-asfar al-'aqliyya al-arba'a, known as al-Asfar. This is his most important and influential work. The rational tradition of Shiite Muslims was remarkably influenced by Mulla Sadra's doctrines. Many subsequent Shiite philosophers, such as Mulla Hadi Sabziwari and 'Allama Tabataba'i commented on, and illustrated, his philosophy. The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the Principality of Existence. His theory about the manner of the bodily resurrection led to controversies.

Mulla Sadra lived in Shiraz, Isfahan, and Qom. In addition to philosophical works, he also wrote some works concerning the exegesis of the Quran and the interpretation of Usul al-kafi.

Contents

Lineage, Birth and Demise

He was born in 979/1571-1572.[1] His father was Ibrahim b. Yahya al-Qawami. Mulla Sadra spent whatever he inherited from his father on his studies.

He died at the age of 70 in 1050/1640 when he was on his way to, or back from, hajj for the seventh time.

Education

He studied the preliminaries under his father in Shiraz. When his father died, he moved to Isfahan—the then Safavid capital with flourishing seminary schools. He studied philosophy and other reflective disciplines under Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Mir Damad (d. 1041/1631) and traditional disciplines (such as fiqh and hadith) from Baha' al-Din al-'Amili (d. 1030/1620). He received permissions (for teaching and other positions) from the two teachers. He must have been of a distinguished academic ranking when he moved to Isfahan, because he immediately attended Baha' al-Din al-'Amili's courses.

After his studies in Isfahan, Mulla Sadra returned to Shiraz where he taught in Khan Seminary. However, he was offended by some scholars in Shiraz. So he left Shiraz to Kahak, a village around Qom, where he was isolated from people for years. After this, he started to write his works and establish his own philosophical school until his death. According to some sources, he spent the last years of his life in Qom.

Academic life

Mulla Sadra's academic life can be classified in three stages:

Studies

He spent a lot of time studying the theories in kalam and Islamic philosophy. In his introduction to his main book, al-Asfar, he expressed his regrets for having spent a lot of time studying speculative issues.

He chose to isolate himself from people and scholars, spending his time worshiping God in some mountains in Kahak near Qom. The isolation took about 15 years. He was only engaged with worships and asceticism all these years.

Writing books

He wrote many of his books and essays. The first book he began to write after a long period of isolation was al-Asfar; it seems that he had already started writing the book during the isolation period. Before writing this monumental book, he had already written some short essays. Al-Asfar counts as the foundation of all subsequent works of Mulla Sadra.

Transcendent Wisdom

Mulla Sadra dubbed his philosophical school of thought as al-Hikma al-muta'aliya (Transcendental Wisdom). For him, the main mark of his Transcendent Philosophy, distinguishing it from the rest of Islamic philosophical schools, is the mystical approach of the former. In his commentaries on Ibn Sina's al-Isharat, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi took the Transcendent Wisdom to be one that reconciles speculative reasons with revelations and mysticism. On the contrary, Peripatetic Wisdom or Philosophy is merely speculative. For Mulla Sadra, the criterion of a philosophy being transcendent is its connection to the imaginal world and revelations.

One characteristic feature of the Transcendent Philosophy is its reconciliation of the intellect and the revelation. What human beings grasp through their intellects is not in contradiction with what the religion and the revelations tell us. This is why Mulla Sadra's works are rife with resources to Quranic verses.

Mulla Sadra elaborated the foundations and principles of the Transcendent Wisdom in a variety of his works. The most important and the most comprehensive of these works is al-Asfar. The structure of this work is fundamentally different from that of Peripatetic and Illuminationist (Ishraq) works. Unlike Peripatetic works, it does not deal with mathematics and natural sciences. Moreover, it has discussed psychological issues (problems regarding the soul and its relation with the body) independently of the rest of the natural sciences; in fact, Mulla Sadra discussed psychological issues as part of his specific theology (or theology proper). The course of al-Asfar is such that the whole book seems to be a preparation for its last two volumes regarding the soul and the resurrection.

One salient feature of the Transcendent Philosophy is its focus on the existential reality of human beings and God. In this intellectual system, the ontological status of human beings is considered not as it relates to lower levels of the existence, but as it relates to the highest level of the existence, that is, God.

The most significant principles and foundations of the Transcendent Philosophy include:

Views

There are different views about the methodology of the Transcendent Philosophy:

Non-authenticity: Some scholars maintain that Mulla Sadra's philosophy lacks any authenticity, since it is merely a combination of earlier philosophies and schools, such as the Peripatetic philosophy, Illuminationist philosophy, kalam and mysticism. This view denies any innovations in Sadra's philosophy.

Combination of Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies: according to this view, the Transcendent Philosophy is a combination of the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies. Mulla Sadra is definitely influenced by Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophers.

Mystical philosophy: Some people take the Transcendent Philosophy to be a mystical philosophy. Mulla Sadra frequently drew upon mystical texts, such as works of Ibn 'Arabi. The Transcendent Philosophy is, on this view, an attempt to philosophize theoretical mysticism. Thus he is considered to be a philosophical mystic, rather than a philosopher.

Employing the two languages of Transcendent and Peripatetic philosophies: Some others maintain that Mulla Sadra employed two languages in order to articulate his philosophical views; one is Transcendent and other is the dominant language in Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies. Thus Mulla Sadra's philosophy is not, on this view, eclectic; rather it is innovative in that it constructed a logical system on the basis of some axioms, though he has articulated the system in the two above languages.

Interdisciplinary attitude: Some contemporary scholars take the Transcendent Philosophy to have an interdisciplinary approach. On this view, Mulla Sadra has fundamentally challenged the extant philosophy of his time, mysticism, and exegeses of the Quran, and thereby he arrived at the interdisciplinary method of the Transcendent Philosophy. In fact, the Transcendent Philosophy is a result of an interdisciplinary challenge before theological problems. Mulla Sadra's familiarity with different disciplines led him to think of a solution to those problems by employing different methods in those disciplines. Thus his innovations result from an interdisciplinary approach to theological studies.

Works

Mulla Sadra wrote many works on different subjects. Here are his main books:

Al-Mabda' wa l-ma'ad: This work is also called al-Hikmat al-muta'aliya. The book counts as a summary of the second part of al-Asfar.

Tafsir al-Quran al-karim (the exegesis of the Quran). Mulla Sadra wrote an exegesis of different verses and suras of the Quran. Late in his life, he started to write a complete exegesis of the Quran, but it remained unfinished by his death.

Conception and belief in Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi An essay on tasawwur (conception) and tasdiq (affirmation); it was translated into English by Joep Lameer.

A summary of al-Asfar; it was translated into German by Max Horten.

Innovations

Possibility by Indigence

Before Mulla Sadra, necessity, possibility and impossibility, known in the Islamic logic as the three materials, used be to be considered as attributes of quiddities. Possibility, considered as an attribute of a quiddity, amounts to its having no essential preferences as to existence and nonexistence. Such a notion is impossible to apply to the case of the existence, since it is impossible for the existence to have no essential preferences as to itself. Possibility, considered as an attribute of the existence, amounts to its essential dependence or indigence or need. Possible existents are wholly dependent on something else, whereas quiddities are not like this. For although they have no subsistence outside of the realm of existence, the intellect can imagine them independently of anything else.

Substantial Motion

Before Mulla Sadra, motion (al-haraka) was restricted to the four categories of how much (quantity), what sort (quality), where (location), and being situated (position). Philosophers before Mulla Sadra did consider motion in the category of substance (jawhar), but they took it to be impossible. Mulla Sadra demonstrated the possibility, and actuality, of motion in substances; he showed that the material world is in constant motion from potentialities to actualizations. He categorized the existence into constant and moving, taking the motion to be a feature of the existence. Indeed, he introduced the motion as one of the main general issues of philosophy.

The proof of the substantial motion had strong impacts on other issues in Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy, such as time, bodily resurrection, the relation between changing and constant things, that between insipient beings and eternal ones, stages of the soul, and metempsychosis.

Simple Reality is All Things

According to this principle, a reality which is simple or uncompounded "in all respects" has all the existential perfections, that is, every existence with its existential perfections is included in it. The existents are present in the simple reality in a simple, compact form. So although all the things are predicated on the simple reality (as in the above principle), in their plurality they are negated therefrom, as is sometimes made explicit in the principle: "the simple reality is all things and none of them", by which is meant their plural and imperfect aspects or limits. This implies that only the perfections of such existents are predicated on the simple reality.

The principle was first introduced in Plotinus's Eneads. However, Mulla Sadra was the first philosopher who presented an argument for the principle and put it at the center stage of his philosophical system.

Unity of the Intellect and the Intelligible

The principle of the unity of the intellection, its subject and its object, in its raw form, is attributed to an ancient philosopher, Porphyry. Ibn Sina rejected the view and humiliated Porphyry because of holding such a view. The unity means that all these three, the intellection, its subject and its object, have one and the same extension. This single extension is only conceptually divided into the above three notions. Although Ibn Sina takes the principle to be unintelligible, Mulla Sadra accepted it as a main principle of his philosophy. What is at stake here is the unity of the intellect and the intelligible, in psychology, in a non-essential way.

Mulla Sadra employs the principle in order to show the unity of the soul with the Active Intellect, the simplicity of the soul, and the resurrection of perfect souls.

Bodily Resurrection and the Spiritual Survival of the Soul

There are various views, in the Islamic philosophy, concerning the eternity or insipience of the soul. Some philosophers believed that the soul is eternal and some held that it is insipient. Advocates of insipience further dispute over the way the soul is insipient. There are three main views here:

The insipience of the soul together with the insipience of the body,

The insipience of the soul by virtue of the body's insipience,

The insipience of the soul before that of the body.

The eternity view too is of different versions due to questions as to the eternity being in the longitudinal (tuli) or latitudinal ('ardi) chain or as to its being essential or temporal. Mulla Sadra takes the soul not only to be insipient by virtue of the body's insipience, but also to be identical to its insipience.

By an appeal to the thesis of substantial motion, Mulla Sadra takes the motion of the soul to be directed at its spiritualization—that is, the doctrine of the spiritual survival of the soul.

Proof of the Bodily Resurrection

Philosophers before Mulla Sadra took the bodily resurrection to be unprovable by reason. Thus some of them denied the idea completely and some accepted it by submission to what the religion says, though they maintained that it was philosophical problematic. However, Mulla Sadra tried to prove the bodily resurrection by way of reason. Thus he provided a new theory in order to reconcile evidence from the religion with philosophical principles. On this view, when the soul separates from the body, it creates a new body for itself apparently similar to its worldly body, though materially different, since it is made up of the stuff of the world of barzakh. This barzakhi body is similar, but not identical to, the worldly body. It has material features (such as shape) but is not material, that is, it has no volume.